The World of Regina Chennault

Chinese New Year 2009 Reunion Dinner

The reunion dinner is the most important dinner in a year as all children (no matter where they live) would return to their parents’ house for the big family gathering and also preparing for the next day– Chinese New Year. The reunion dinner to Chinese is just like Thanksgiving meal to Americans. And as such, it’s a feast too just like the American version. For the reunion feast menu, I was thinking to have 1 soup, 1 meat dish, 1 seafood dish and 1 veggie dish. This was what on the table:

Chinese New Year Eve Reunion Dinner

Soup: chicken soup with fish maw and abalones

Meat: roasted duck from Marina Foods ( I was in line for at least 45 minutes for this duck!)

Seafood: Padang (sweet curry) prawns and steamed grouper with spicy soybean sauce (I didn’t plan this on the menu as Richard is not a big fan of cooked fish but my friend said serve fish and save some extra for the next day– meaning there’s always abundance of wealth, so here on the table).

Veggie: sauteed sweet peas with mushroom and carrot. Sweet peas is for the “sweet” coming lunar year. I made a flower pattern out of the carrot, not only would it look pretty on the plate but also tried to encourage my boys to eat carrots… but no luck at all.

This was a lot of food for a small family like us (2 adults, 2 boys and 1 baby) and I expected to have some leftovers. I wanted to have some leftovers… after busy making all the CNY treats days before, it was time for me to take a break from the kitchen…